The leading Republican running for office has a greater that 10 to 1 ratio between false and true statements. In fact, 22% of his statements have received ‘pants on fire’ outright lie status, compared to the measly 3% truths he’s offered up.
This is truly Orwellian. His ‘party’ – the Grand Old Party, or his faction of it – has slipped into the zone of blackwhite, which Orwell dreamed up in 1984.
[from wikipedkia] Blackwhite is defined as follows:
this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink.
— Orwell, 1984
The word is an example of both Newspeak and doublethink. It represents the active process of rewriting the past, control of the past being a vital aspect of the Party’s control over the present.
The ability to blindly believe anything, regardless of its absurdity, can have different causes: respect for authority, fear, indoctrination, even critical laziness or gullibility. Orwell’s blackwhite refers only to that caused by fear, indoctrination, or repression of one’s individual critical thinking (“to know black is white”), rather than caused by laziness or gullibility. A true Party member could automatically, and without thought, expunge any incorrect information and totally replace it with true information from the Party. If properly done, there is no memory or recovery of the Incorrect information that could cause unhappiness to the Party member by committing thoughtcrime. This ability is likened to the total erasure of information only possible in electronic storage.
from Stowe Boyd http://stoweboyd.com/post/141722882107
